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Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia
James Hardine writes "Wikileaks reports that US armed forces personnel at Guantanamo have conducted propaganda attacks over the Internet. (The story has been picked up by the NYTimes, The Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the AP.) The activities documented by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual'). Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'"
I would be hard pressed to call editing wikipedia articles to favor oneself "conducting a propaganda campaign", much in the same way that I would feel awkward referring to updating my blog as a press release.
This lowly anon humbly suggests tagging the story "ministryoftruth".
Seems rather appropriate.
The mass communications officer is expected to make a full recovery as a Slashdot editor and meta-moderator.
Certain people shouldn't be allowed to post comments or edit Wikipedia. We gotta lock the Internet down; it's the only way to preserve freedom of expression.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
A better analogy would be "next you're going to tell me that Linus Torvals is working for the government and, while on the tax-payer's dime, is posting false information and deleting content that may be true but negative toward linux on wikipedia".
Also, the ideal goal is to keep Wikipedia as void of 'opinion' as possible anyway.
I'm shocked that the military would try to edit Gitmo facts out of Wikipedia. Don't they know that pages' history is saved, so that improper deletions can be easily restored? Don't they know that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of editors paranoid enough about the Bush administration and war on terror to monitor the Gitmo page? Couldn't the military be doing something, um, useful to prosecute the war on terror? Didn't the military realize that these efforts would come back to bite them in the ass (thanks Wikileaks!) and further hamper their efforts?
And regarding Lt. Col. Bush's "He was just doing his job" defense, I'd like to note that that defense hasn't been recognized in law since at least Nuremburg.
We apparently can't get ethical intelligence officers, but can we at least get intelligent intelligence officers?
Oh right you just wanted to troll about Wikipedia, my mistake.
While it is true that every bit of information out there is shaded by personal perceptions, I can better make my own informed decisions vis-a-vis said information if I know who is communicating it to me. What this information officer was doing is repugnant in a democratic society where people need to make informed choices. Saying that we've been doing it since forever doesn't set precedent as propaganda's general purpose is to control the public opinion: it seems antithetical to democratic societies. And while Wikipedia is not perfect on political topics, at least it's something and we can make discoveries about the editorial leanings of the contributors.
Is the officer defending his guy for "just doing his job" to abuse privately owned and operated websites and spread misinformation. His job? I'm sorry, but spreading (mis)information is what the whole .gov domain was created for. There's no need to deface private websites and spam comments pages...and be paid to do it with our tax dollars. You do that, you deserve what's coming to you and it should be the military's duty to make sure they aren't assigning soldiers to such incredibly wasteful activities.
You are probably remembering the article where IPs traced to CIA was used to edit the wikipedia-article about the iraq war
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
The incompetence of government is our only real chance at safely. These people are the reason I don't believe the government has covered up UFO's or a massive 9/11 conspiracy. They aren't competent. They can't find their own ass using both hands, much less scratch it without getting caught. The fixed ratio of stupidity to malice being constant means the damage these people can do will be sort term. (Short term being years though.) Much the same way the malice/stupidity ratio lead to the Nazi's being responsible for the very mistakes that lead to their defeat.
a military prison has a spin-meister.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So ignore a truth unless the person saying it is guilt-free? Facts don't stand on their own anymore?
Twinstiq, game news
So the edit, changed the title of link to the article "War in Afghanistan (2001-present)" to say 'War in Afghanistan' instead of 'Invasion of Afghanistan' and I'm supposed to get worked up over it?
Just may be me, but calling it Invasion of Afghanistan is just a clever way of trying to spin it the other direction.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Yeah, it's not the military's fault that they are employing military personal to vandalize non-profit organization's websites with biased propaganda. It's wikipedia's fault! *eyeroll*
This is different. The article specifically states that the soldier is their "mass communications specialist", and that he was being paid to edit the articles to support Guantanamo.
I could see your point if the article read "military IPs used to edit wikipedia", but this is being financed by the government. Lt. Col. Ed Bush came right out and said that their "mass communications specialist" was just doing his job.
That is the point of wikipedia. That is not the important part of this story and, in fact, it mentions Digg and several other sites. The point of this story is the government is spending our tax dollars to spread "positive reviews" and misinformation related to government projects, thereby undermining the fourth estate. The other point of this story is they are incompetent at it and admit to doing it. Can't you muster up just a little bit of indignation that instead of providing ten poverty stricken youth with full scholarships to university we're paying at least one incompetent hack that money to lie to us on Web forums?
Well, you can. But in big city parks, such as Central Park in NYC, it's not a good idea.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
From the article in question:
This is the American government speaking to the American people and to the world through Wikipedia, not identifying itself and often speaking about itself in the third person, Assange said in a telephone interview from Paris.
Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush, a prison camps spokesman, said there is no official attempt to alter information posted elsewhere but said the military seeks to correct what it believes is incorrect or outdated information about the prison.
Bush declined to answer questions about the Castro posting.
Assange said that in January 2006, someone at Guantánamo wrote in a Wikipedia profile of the Cuban president: Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual, the unknown writer said, misspelling the word transsexual.
The U.S. has no formal relations with Cuba and has maintained its base in the southeast of the island over the objections of the Castro government.
So, that's a lie. Also, from the link you posted:
Revision as of 20:55, 16 January 2006 (edit)
Revision as of 22:22, 16 January 2006 (edit)
So, you're not just a liar, but also an idiot.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
As for the pro-Kremlin bloggers, A recent report by Radio Free Europe states, "A new generation of pro-Kremlin bloggers, for example, is being cultivated to spread Putin's word online -- and to rapidly disrupt the activities of Russia's opponents, both real and imagined.
When Kasparov's Other Russia held a rally in Moscow on April 14, for example, a group of pro-Kremlin bloggers from the Young Guard youth movement flooded the Internet with reports of a smaller pro-regime demonstration on the same day. In doing so, they crowded out postings about the opposition march on Russia's top web portals -- creating a virtual news blackout in one of the last refuges of free media in the county. Pavel Danilin, the pro-Putin blogger who spearheaded the effort bragged to 'The Washington Post' that his team 'played it beautifully.'"
Is Russia becoming more like the USA, or is the USA becoming more like Russia?
That said, there's a difference between a propaganda campaign orchestrated at high levels, vs. some bored private being a dork. Then again, powerful people tend to do their dirty work through disposable minions, so it's not always easy to tell.
Yes, because the land-of-freedom USA are supposed to be like Russia, China, etc. Congratulations on that Insightful vote, you didn't really deserve it. Oh, I don't belong to the USA and I don't like many of their current policies, but your point is quite senseless.
This isn't a matter of opinion. This is a matter of obscuring or removing factual information portraying what actually happened. To lie about something factual is entirely different than offering an opinion. And the motive is obvious - to circumvent accountability.
The user in question is simply a common wikipedia vandal. The only pro-US change he made was calling Fidel Castro a transsexual, yet he goes on to call the president "George Wanker Bush" and a "fag". Those two edits were the only politic-related pages he altered. Furthermore, his IP resolves to Romania, which is nowhere near Guantanamo or any place I would choose to conveniently locate a pro-US wikipedia propaganda artist.
More lies and propaganda. The link you posted was to the person who edited BEFORE it was altered. The link to the actual user who did this is here
Reverse DNS lookup reveals that IP belongs to:
130.22.190.5 resolves to
"public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil"
Top Level Domain: "southcom.mil"
So, how much do you guys get paid for doing this?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
But Guatanemo is being used outside of normal military usage which is probably why they also need spin meisters to make their case.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
If the government claims "lots of other people are doing it" as justification for anything it does, I want the same defense the next time a cop pulls me over for speeding, or when the IRS questions some of my more creative tax deductions. Otherwise, we're setting up a two track system: one for people who work the government levers, and the other for the people who pay for the levers to be there.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
What is that supposed to mean? Fidel Castro is trying to pass as the bearded lady?
Of course not, but when they are caught they need to be punished and more importantly, stopped.
Be indignant that Wikipedia is not encouraging its users to question the data it contains, be indignant that Wikipedia does not have disclaimers and warnings as to its potential inaccuracies -- that's your true crime, your true deception, right there.No it isn't. The crime is the government overstepping its mandate and working against the people it is supposed to serve. That is the crime. Wikipedia has no obligation to anyone.
Don't blame the Government (or anyone else's Government, or NGO, or Political party, or Corporation or cabal...) for the propaganda, they are only doing their jobs.The government is the one that should be blamed. Their job is defined by the constitution. Read it. Whenever they overstep that, they aren't doing their job, they're violating the public trust and need to be called onto the carpet by the electorate. What are you some sort of paid shill trying to divert attention to a charitable project for not doing what you think they should? They aren't funded with tax dollars and have no responsibility to do anything and are thus, blameless.
But this story is newsworthy because, allegedly, a US military officer, as part of his paid duties, was removing information from Wikipedia, and other websites, that put the detention camp at Guantanamo in a bad light or that (apparently) gave more information than the U.S. military wanted. That sort of thing would be just as newsworthy if a US military officer, as part of his duties, impersonated a civilian journalist to write newspaper columns.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
All of these "freedom" organizations turn quite orwellian themselves whenever someone disagrees with them.
There's a huge difference between covertly intruding on private communications and parsing a changelog on a wiki. It's not as if there are packet sniffers listening to what the military is doing, and I'm not even sure that that would count as "orwellian" if it were the case.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
This would result in the worst detainees at Guantanamo being, with appropriate evidence, convicted and held accountable, instead of being detained indefinitely as US expense. I think it would also result in many detainees, if the US government has no evidence of them doing anything other than fighting openly as part of a militia or tribal force against the United States, being held as regular prisoners of war.
* - In modern time, I believe that the US has tried accused spies in civilian courts, unless, of course, they were US military members accused of spying.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute here! It's an actual job -- meaning something you can be paid for -- to sit around all day anonymously accusing Fidel Castro of being a transsexual on the Internet?
Wow, I suddenly feel like a sucker for writing software when I could get the Army to pay me for cutting and pasting between bash.org and Wikipedia.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Now, Wikipedia does maintain a NPOV policy that one might consider relevant to the case at hand. However, NPOV applies to the nature of contributed content, not the nature of the contributor. When he's not ordering political opponents assassinated, Putin is free to work to his own page, as long as the contributed content maintains a NPOV.
The Wikileaks page linked from our
Having read all of the same edits myself I can confirm that these 5 edits constitute the complete propaganda attack. I can only speculate why someone from Gitmo might feel the need to remove detainee ID numbers; perhaps the practice is obsolete. Who knows? The detainee topics themselves weren't harmed in any substantive way by the lack of ID numbers. The petty "war" verses "invasion" thing; they're both wrong. The only NPOV word that comes to mind for me is "conflict". As for the transsexual bit; puerile crap like this appears at a frequency of several Hz on Wikipedia, and is removed almost as quickly by various bots and many diligent editors. Ascribing this to some propaganda machine when it could just as easily have been some twit among the 3000+ active duty troops in Gitmo is a real stretch.
There you have it; 3 unexplained detainee ID removals which failed to significantly propagandize anything, a single word edit war in which both sides are guilty of violating NPOV and some vandalism.
Wow.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
According to the wikileaks article in the original post this IP is the internet gateway for gitmo. That means that multiple computers (possibly all of them on the base) will show up under this IP.
What's funny/sad about these "revelations" is that the "highlighted changes" by wikileaks are exactly 5 items:
3x removing the id number of a detainee
1x changing "invasion of Afghanistan" to "War in Afghanistan"
1x the castro thing.
(there's links to the diffs in the article. The castro thing is from back in 2006)
THAT's the massive misinformation campaign ? If it is, it's the lamest effort at propaganda ever!
If one ctually reads the wiki page on the Gitmo detention center it is dominated by the complaints and allegations of released prisoners and the tone is that of the militant anti-Gitmo crowd. The word "torture" (or its derivatives) occurs 45 times on the page as of this writing.
There's a whole lot of material for even a neutral person to dig into and remove, let alone a pro-Bush or anti-anti-Gitmo one. For example the old accusation about about the Koran being flushed down the toilet is still featured in the wikipedia article even though Newsweek printed a retraction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500605.html
My point is that this report, and much of the reaction here on
I also find it funny, in an endearing way, that many of the changes from this IP have to do with anime; also edible fish.
There are few things more annoying than when people ignore scale. What Moscow does and what Washington does in terms of media manipulation is night and day. Washington does merrily try and get its perspective thrown into a favorable light... like all the other governments in the world. It might even use shitty tactics some times. The difference is the scale. Washington performs card tricks while Moscow makes 747's disappear. Last time I checked, no one is dying to find a loop hole to keep Bush in office and his approval rating is hovering somewhere around a truly impressive 30%. If anything, all of Bush successors are trying desperately to avoid using his name as anything other than a curse word. The opposition party in the US (Democrats) are in the processes of trashing the shit out of ex-ruling party (Republicans). Moscow doesn't have any opposition parties beyond a small powerless communist party. Moscow doesn't even bother having elections for regional governors and just appoints them.
So, does Washington run propaganda campaigns? Sure. They should be. It isn't like the various groups opposed to the US are not running their own. They should be ethical in how they run their campaigns, but it absolutely is their duty to run them. If there is a breach of ethics, it should be investigated and dealt with. That said, I have to roll my eyes and yawn at the editing Wikipedia articles. If they hacked into Wikipedia and deleted change logs, I would be on the OMGWTF bandwagon. If some ass hole in a government office who was tasked with fighting a propaganda campaign was an absolute dumb shit and interpreted those orders as "go edit Wikipedia and leave behind my IP and change logs", than my out rage is reserved to the fact that we would hire such a dumb ass in the first place, not the fact that it was done. I am far more pissed off that my money was wasted on paying some dumbass who thinks that making a few edits to wikipedia, a website specifically design to be resistant against such bone headed attacks, counts as scoring a victory in a propaganda effort against Islamic extremist.
The reality is unquestionably that politicians are inherently corrupt and will spin things as much in their favor as possible. However, this does not mean that our jobs are to champion or even accept it.
Wikipedia is not responsible for the misinformation in the least - responsibility lies squarely in the lap of those who choose to taint articles with propaganda. The message one should come away from this regarding Wikipedia (which should be common practice, anyways) is to always take articles with a grain of salt. Examine any attached sources, search for additional sources, and draw your own conclusions from what you gather. Taking anything you hear or read at face value is generally a poor idea.
The fact that allowing anyone to modify an article can occasionally lead to misinformation is simply something you should accept when reading anything on Wikipedia.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
And as another poster pointed out, Wikipedia owes nothing to us. It comes with no warranty of reliability, and since it is free, it is too much even to say "caveat emptor." On the other hand, dismissing government duplicity by a mere wave of "thus it has always been" is a real danger. That is the same logic that argues we should condone torture and assassinations because all governments do it. I don't want my government engaged in wholesale deception of its citizenry. Concealment has a place. I don't need to know the launch codes. Lies too have a place (e.g. sting operations) but a campaign to misinform the public with the goal of influencing policy undermines the foundations of democracy.
Besides, if wikipedia's wrong, I can always go to britannica or to a real book. If my government systemically lies, who do I go to for the truth?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Be indignant about that. Be indignant that Wikipedia is not encouraging its users to question the data it contains, be indignant that Wikipedia does not have disclaimers and warnings as to its potential inaccuracies -- that's your true crime, your true deception, right there.
How can you be sure the same isn't true for regular media?
Take any old encyclopedia... Can you tell me for sure that they weren't edited in such a way for any type of bias or misinformation?
If it has sources, then what if the sources are suspect? If you have an authority, what do you to have to prove (other than gut instinct and the authorities references which could also be suspect) they aren't a paid shill too?
I think it all comes down to trust.
Do you trust Wikipedia? Could you trust your school text books? Could you trust the news? Can you even trust your parents to tell you the truth about things?
Example, I have an old copy of a 1944 encyclopedia reference (not the entire series) which mentions the Soviets as our allies. Are there any references to Soviet atrocities from the 1930s? Nope. They are our allies.
From a personal perspective, you should assume that everyone is either lying to you or misinformed themselves without anyone disclaiming the fact but I have to trust them because I have no other choice, but it doesn't help to ask "Are you sure?".
We agree that Wikipedia isn't as authoritative as they make it out to be, but what I disagree with you is that they have to disclaim it or that anything else in life is better.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Yes. We should refrain from solving any problem until some other problem gets fixed. That'll get things done.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
There's a big difference between the government invading the privacy of individuals versus individuals monitoring what their government does.
And your number 5 was not actually edited by anyone in Guantanamo, but is vandalism by someone with a Romanian IP. The fact that it is included in the article in an attempt to smear the Guantanamo poster is propaganda of another sort.
OK, look...you are subject to death threats. If I find you, I'm going to kill you. See how that works?
But there's a big difference between someone receiving death threats based on something that has been misreported -- like, a guy who was reported to be a sex offender getting death threats even after all the charges have been dropped -- and somebody getting death threats for something they really, actually did do. Now, death threats are illegal, and whomever was threatening this poor schmuck should probably get to spend a night or two in the can. But come on ... if the government had an official "rape squad" and they got outed by the media, and those people then received death threats ... cry me a river!
The media has a responsibility to report the truth. The fact that everybody complains about it when they actually succeed is one of the things that's reducing our media to a pile of worthless crap. There is probably an ethics question around the wisdom of posting this person's full name, or whatever. But to decry the media for doing so on the basis that some yahoo decided to send the dude a death threat kinda sounds like shooting the messenger, to me.
Breakfast served all day!
Actually, Colbert's truthy line is "...For as we are all aware, the Facts have a well-known Liberal bias." ...his implication being, that when you understand cause and effect, you realize that life is something that needs to be nurtured, not dominated, and that only by investing directly in the health, education, and general welfare of the people do you get a healthy and prosperous body politic.
Those whom he indicts in the government and press for distorting the truth, he also calls cowards. When the truth doesn't serve your ends, it is courageous and moral to change your course. But again and again those who have usurped the reins of power consider only their own distorted ends, without consideration for the reasonable will of the people. They would have us be ruled by false images so that we relinquish all our power.
One only wonders, to what end are they deceiving us and stealing our power? I suppose it must be private elite world domination, and the well-being of the people be damned.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Bullshit.
You can seen from this link that the Castro edit was made by 130.22.190.5 - the Gitmo IP.
Anybody working at the Guantanamo prison deserves death threats.
Fuck 'em.
They deserve to be arrested, charged with war crimes, and sentenced to significant time in a military prison.
The US is torturing prisoners who have not been formally and legally charged with any crime. That is a war crime. The responsibility goes right up to the Commander in Chief George W. Bush and he needs to be arrested and sent to The Hague for trial as a war criminal along with the complete chain of command down to the prison guards executing the orders.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You can read here, on page 3 of this pdf, about the most recent rotation of public affairs GIs. They are just kids. Most of what they do are puff pieces -- interviews for the "Chaplain's Corner". Sixty wikipedia edits, of this sort, could have been done by a couple of bored privates, over their lunch hour, the day the Sergeant was out of the office.
More notable is the goodbye essay of Colonel Lora L. Tucker, a retiring PCH officer, on page 2. The way I see it her retiring essay provides a big part of the answer to the question how could American soldiers be involved in abusing captives?
Guarding men, held without charge, for an indefinite term, would be bad for the morale of young American GIs. What I think happened is that officers like Geoffrey Miller, Harry Harris, made the conscious decision to demonize the Guantanamo captives, keeping up the GI's morale by vastly overstating the importance of the captives, the danger they represented, and the confidence responsible officers could have about their role in terrorist attacks.
Colonel Tucker seems to have accepted the unsubstantiated claims of spin doctors at face value.
Back in 2005 there was a brief period when camp authorities allowed the press to interview some of the ordinary troops who served as the camp's guards. I remember a brief clip the BBC broadcast about his frustrations about serving as a camp guard. He made two points:
Guards weren't given enough scope to retaliate against captives who spit on them, or threw urine on them.
(paraphrasing) "Half of these guys killed a US soldier." Well, I checked. At the time the guard made this comment 192 American GIs had died in Afghanistan -- including those like Pat Tillman who were victims of "friendly fire". At that point about 500 captives remained in Guantanamo. So even if every American death could be attributed to a Guantanamo captive, that still wouldn't have been "half".
When examined in detail the allegations faced by only a few dozen captives could be honestly reported to have been "captured on the battlefield" -- for any reasonable definition of battlefield. The allegations against most of the captives don't support the claim that they were "combatants". Under the Geneva Conventions a demobilized soldier is considered a civilian. According to the Geneva Conventions only soldier who are currently part of an army, or militia -- or civilians who choose to engage in hostilities against their countries invaders, are combatants. A veteran might be highly decorated, or admired -- according to the Geneva Convention, if that demobilized veteran stayed home, didn't try to re-enlist, and left his rifle hanging over his mantle, he remained a civilian.
The Guantanamo captives included a couple of dozen grandfathers, who were considered combatants because they fought against Afghanistan's Soviet invaders during the 1980s. One grandfather's military service dated back to 1960s, when he served in the Afghanistan Army when Afghanistan was still a monarchy.
And yet the guards believed, "over half these guys killed a US soldier". The authorities demonized them. And this set the stage for the abuse.
And you reactionaries often cry, "It was a joke!" when people call you out for being a dick. And please enlighten me as to how writing words, any words, can make one a thug. For instance, saying "tjstork is an enormous tool who kisses the ass of any American fascist he can lay his lips on" does not make one a thug. Thugs torture people with waterboarding and electric shocks to the testicles. They don't post messages on Slashdot saying things like, "tjstork's grasp of logic is as piss-poor as his grasp of sociopolitical realities."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Circumcision is child abuse.
There are plenty of POV pushers who get away with it. During Huricane Katrina there was a team of GOP staffers diligently removing any material that mentioned the fact that the federal govt. was asleep at the switch. And quite often you find that the GOP propaganda is being spread from a military IP address. Seems like all they are allowed to listen to in the military is Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
Some edits from Congress are actually useful, the staffers usually get things like the biography right and usually on the ball with graphiti removal. But its pretty hard to scrub the page of any well known politician. Katherine Harris tried to have the Cruella Deville stuff taken out of her article but it never worked, the people were just not subtle enough.
The POV peddling that sticks is in the subtler edits, like the guy who tried to turn 'First Responder' into a page redefining what a first responder is to fit with some wingnut conspiracy theory.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The dolchstosslegende is always with us. The "American Left," neither the Democrats nor the Black Panthers (I assume you distinguish between the two), never held the white house during the draw down and Vietnamization of the 70s, and as we can all see from current events a determined president, particularly a second-termer like Nixon, is quite capable of keeping soldiers in the field for as long as he damn well pleases. Of course the Republican leadership was compromised by its stupendously illegal conduct over the previous years. The "American Left" didn't tap peoples phones without a warrant, or kidnap people and perform truth drug experiments on them. That was left to Dick Helms and Charles Colson and J. Edgar.
I know; I was there in '72 when the NVA sent 150,000 men across the border with more armor and mechanized equipment than the Germans sent to the Battle of the Kursk Salient, and got back less than one third, all of whom had to walk home because their equipment had been smashed, at a cost of less than 50 American deaths, for the entire month.You see that, or did you hear it in briefings? David Halberstam and the other war correspondents basically demolished the veracity of the briefings the military gave, and the sort of statistics the US military would produce made Baghdad Bob look like Ed Murrow. The Pentagon considered lying about such things an important strategic maneuver.
Even if we were killing guys at the rate you give, why weren't we marching on Hanoi right then and there? Maybe because it probably would've triggered a world war with China and or Russia, and even the most die hard Republicans didn't care so much about the RVN that they were willing to even chance that, even if meant "appeasement" (remember Kissinger had been negotiating with Le Duc Tho since '68). Also, once we've marched into Hanoi and pulled down all the Ho Chi Minh statues, what do we do then? The south vietnamese government was little more than a junta run by whichever general Westmoreland, Cabot Lodge or Kissinger liked the best at the time, and was profoundly unpopular and illegitimate. It's the same crap all over again, "if we kill all the bad guys the good guys obviously win," instead in this case it was Kennedy and Johnson making the assumption.
Some purchase has been gotten over the last few years by pundits who claim that the essential characteristic of the "domino theory," that SE Asia would fall to Communism, in fact played out exactly as we'd been warned. What is neglected is that, in fact, the number one factor in predicting if a country would fall to Communism was the level of US involvement in it. The more we tried to help with our bombs, the more likely it was that Communism would overrun the country. Countries we didn't touch might have leftist or Communists in there parliament, but would generally stay non-aligned and pacific. Countries we "helped" had killing fields.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Feel free to look it up for yourself.
That patriotic civilian could be held for the duration of hostilities -- but not under the conditions the Guantanamo captives were held.
But, what should be said here is, the allegations the DoD has released against the captives largely don't support the claim that they were combatants.
The DoD has released Summary of Evidence memos listing the allegations against 572 of the 777 captives. If you read some of those allegation memos for yourself you will find that very few of them support the allegation that they were "captured on a battlefield."
In the eighteen months since the memos were first released I have read those 572 memos. Not only do a small fraction of them support this allegation. My assessment is that of the small fraction of those allegation memos that support the "captured on the battlefield" claim more that half of those captives were poor saps who were just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real shooters in these skirmishes fled, and got away scot free.
Let me tell you two of the most memorable cases, that of two brothers: Naqeebyllah Shaheen Shahwali Zair Mohammed and Rasool Shahwali Zair Mohammed Mohammed. transcript at pages 64-76 and 22-28 of this .pdf and transcript at pages 13-28 of this .pdf.
Like a couple of million other Afghans their family fled the decades of warfare in Afghanistan. The brothers grew up as refugees, in Pakistan. They went to school there. They went to medical technician college. The more ambitious, or academically gifted brother worked his way through medical school.
When the Taliban was ousted, and Hamid Karzai took over, one of the problems his country faced was a terrible lack of professionals and literate men. Karzai broadcast a request for educated Afghan refugees to return home. And these two brother decided to heed his request.
So far this is a good news story. This is exactly what everyone hoping for Afghanistan becoming a peaceful, prosperous country would wish for.
The brothers returned the region where their family was from. They borrowed money to equip their medical clinic with modern lab equipment, so the clinic could supply modern medical care, take X-rays, do standard blood tests.
So far this is a good news story. This would almost certainly be the first modern medical care this area ever had. This would save the lives of dozens of babies, old folks, etc.
The Americans established a small firebase nearby.
Okay. Good news. Provide some security.
The first American CO was sensible. He sought out the doctor -- a respected local, who spoke English, and asked him to go around with him, and introduce him to the elders at the various local village councils, and help explain to them that the American intentions were to help the Afghan people, help provide security, help rebuild the country's infrastructure.
So far this is a good news story.
Our doctor agreed. And consequently the elders on these local village councils saw the doctor as the intermediary through whom they could direct requests to the American firebase commander. I imagine these were requests like: "could you allocate some of that discretionary reconstruction fund you control to put our idle young men to work rebuilding the irrigation canal east of here?"
And, so far this is a good news story.
The doctor was a busy guy. So, when the other locals made these kinds of requests he wrot
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Seems to be the registrant to this domain. US Military Mass Communication Specialist, with expertise on harrassing anti-war activists.
Perhaps Wikipedia's motto should be something like, "By the people for the people." --After all, the various secret services of the world already own the rest of the media, so to heck with them. They don't play fair so they shouldn't be invited to join.
Anyway, psychopaths are not people. They are sharks who feed on people, they infest government, and they cannot be reformed. Only a fool would invite a shark to a pool party. --The charming psychopath is a master of manipulation, and typically seeds chaos under the guise of reason, and in the confusion, torments you while eating you alive.
Psychopaths make up an estimated 4% to 6% of the population, they are drawn to positions of power, and are far better equipped than normal humans to succeed in attaining those positions.
-FL
Oh? Examples please? If this claim was really true why have so few of the stories about rogue GI had any legs. It seems to me that the MSM has dropped a lot of stories as if they were radioactive.
Here is a counter-example. Carolyn Wood. This officer was in charge of interrogations at Bagram when her troops slowly, methodically, brutally beat two innocent men to death. All the captives in her prison were subjected to a couple of days or a couple of weeks of beatings, isolation and sleep deprivation. The sleep deprivation was administered by having their hands shackled above their heads. If passing guards saw them nodding off, in spite the shackling, they were supposed to administer a "peroneal strike".
These two men died, while the others survived, because they got more than their share of blows. One was rumored to have a brother who was a taliban commander. He wasn't accused of being a member of the Taliban himself. But he was mouthy. Even though his autopsy showed he died of these blows. Even though the military pathologist classed his death as a homicided Wood failed to rein in her troops, and the other man was beaten to death. The troops didn't believe he was really an enemy. They just found his cries amusing. He was estimated to have received over 400 of these peroneal strikes. The military pathologist who examined his body said she had only seen legs so badly damaged once -- someone whose legs had been run over by a bus.
So, what happened to Wood? Court-martial? Dishonorable discharge?
Nope. She was given a Bronze Star, and a promotion, and a new assignment.
Next stop Abu Ghraib.
No. I am not making this up. It was mainly military police in the pictures the DoD released from the Abu Ghraib gallery. But in the background of some of those pictures you can see some of Wood's interrogators. The hapless MPs said that they had been instructed and egged on by Wood's troops.
Wood drafted the infamous "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" that went out of Sanchez's signature in September 2003. Wood's interrogators are known to have used unauthorized interrogation methods she developed in Bagram in Iraq.
So, what happened next? Court-martial? Dishonorable discharge? Have her Bronze Star stripped from her?
Another Bronze Star. And a plum assignment. She was made an interrogation instructor at Camp Huaxcha, the US Army's intelligence college.
No. I am not making this up.
The Fay-Jones Inquiry made the following recommendations to her commanding officers: